


Survival Skills

by Sholio



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Families of Choice, Family Feels, Gen, Good Parent Jim "Chief" Hopper, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 08:59:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12723546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: This wasn't how Hopper planned to spend his Saturdays in the winter of 84/85. But he couldn't just let these idiot kids get themselves killed without teaching them at least a few minimal self-defense tactics.





	Survival Skills

There was no reason, no goddamn earthly reason why Hopper was now giving up his Saturdays to teach self-defense to a bunch of teenagers.

... No reason aside from the general feeling that he probably ought to at least put in the minimal baseline level of effort to keep these idiots from getting themselves killed. (He tried not to worry that teaching them a few things was just going to make them _more_ likely to get killed, because they were exactly that sort of idiot. Not even trying to do anything was worse.)

He started with the Wheeler girl, because after that one night at Joyce's, he wanted to know if she really knew how to use a gun, or if she just knew enough to make her dangerous. The answer turned out to be "a little of both," but she turned out to be a natural with both handguns and rifles, and it was kinda fun to have someone to practice target shooting with, out behind the cabin where he'd set up some homemade targets. It took Jane a little while to get used to the noise -- Hopper told her they could take it farther away from the cabin if she wanted, but she shook her head. Once she settled into it, though, she'd hang out with them, sitting on a log in the thin winter sunshine and swinging her legs. She liked to make cocoa for all three of them afterwards, showing off her newfound skills at stirring Swiss Miss (with mini marshmallows) into hot water she heated in a saucepan on the stove.

Okay, so it wasn't gourmet. Given Hopper's minimal housework skills, though, he figured he was doing good enough by keeping them both fed on a daily basis. And this was something Jane could make when he wasn't home and she wanted a treat.

"Do you want me to bring you guys an actual teakettle?" Nancy asked, watching Jane levitate a quart-sized saucepan full of boiling water. "I think we have an old one we never use."

"I like this one," Jane said without looking up from her work as she carefully concentrated on pouring the exact same amount of water into each mug, where it stirred itself.

Hopper had been letting her use her powers more around the house. The nosebleeds still bugged him, but he figured as long as _she_ didn't mind, it was good for her to be able to do her chores in the way that made her happy. After all, it didn't really _matter_ if she set the table using her hands or levitated the stuff out of the drawers ... well, besides giving him a mild case of the heebie jeebies, but he was getting used to it. And Nancy was in on the secret, so that was okay.

The next one to get the benefit of the Jim Hopper School of Useful Life Skills was the Harrington kid, because based on his track record he couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag.

"I've lost two fistfights, man. Goddamn," Steve muttered, the last fading traces of yellowing bruises still visible on his face. "Two."

"Out of how many, exactly?"

Steve muttered and made excuses and refused to answer the question, but he started showing up at the cabin during Christmas break, where Hopper started teaching him basic moves from his long-ago boxing days and stuff he remembered from Basic.

Like Nancy with the guns, Steve was good at this stuff. He was an athlete; he was coordinated; he had pretty good upper-body strength. What he was lacking was a sort of basic violent instinct. He didn't have the anger, and Hopper didn't really want to teach him that. Hopper was pretty sure Steve _could_ do it, when someone he cared about was on the line, and in the meantime, he drilled him on basic moves and thought about asking what Steve was planning on doing after graduation. Athletic scholarship to some state college? Sticking around to work for Harrington senior? Because the thing was, Hopper wouldn't mind shoving some applications in Steve's direction for the police force and see how he did. Steve had the protective instincts, he was good with people, and Hopper wouldn't mind having the kid at his back in a crisis.

He'd honestly forgotten that Steve and Nancy weren't dating anymore ... well, in all honesty he didn't remember that they'd been dating in the first place. It wasn't like he kept up on the love lives of the local teenagers; he hadn't been good at that even when he _was_ a teenager. So the thought never occurred to him that there was any reason the boxing lessons and shooting lessons might not overlap, which led to some occasionally awkward times at the cabin (smoothed over by four cups of cocoa poured by Jane) but ... they never really did anything about it, it just kind of became a thing that might happen, having both kids at the cabin at the same time and watching them be puppyishly awkward around each other.

Typically Nancy was dropped off and picked up by the Byers kid (who she was dating? Apparently?) and sometimes he'd stick around to watch her shoot, which made things even more awkward when Steve was there. And also it meant someone had to choose between the badly cracked mug or one of the tin camp mugs for the cocoa, because there weren't that many cups in the house.

Hopper didn't try to push the Byers kid into joining in on either the gun lessons or the boxing, and Jonathan didn't ask, but he did get along really well with Jane (who also really liked Nancy and Steve; kid was making friends all over the place these days) and he brought albums to play for her and basically kept her happy and entertained while Hopper was out back with the other two, so why not?

Then the little kids, the goddamn 13-year-olds got wind of all of this. He might have known.

There was no way in hell he was teaching gun skills to that bunch, no matter how many times they asked -- okay, maybe _he'd_ been plinking cans and shooting squirrels with a .22 at their age, but it was a different time and, well, he was him and they were them, and basically he did not intend to try to explain to Mrs. Wheeler or to Joyce that he'd taught their darling little boys to shoot a hunting rifle. However, the kids seemed to find it endlessly entertaining to spend their Saturdays at the cabin, yelling encouragement at Nancy (like she needed it), placing bets on Steve vs. Hopper in their sparring sessions (he knew nothing about this, nothing at all), and making Jane laugh more than she usually did all week.

And, okay, he did teach them a few simple things. If they were _going_ to be doing the things they did, they might as well have the basic ability to defend themselves. He tried to keep the lessons age-appropriate -- some basic stuff for getting away from an attacker and shaking off a tail on their bikes, say. The kids were also a lot more interested than the teenagers in Hopper's lessons about the woods: how to identify animal tracks, what the trees were called, how to build a campfire in the snow (using matches, regular matches -- stop giving them ideas, dammit Jane).

And ... well ... maybe by the time winter gave way to spring, while he wasn't about to admit it, he looked forward to those Saturdays all week: the way the cabin lit up with an endless stream of kids running in and out, the way Jane laughed (actually laughed out loud!), the teenagers running out to pick up pizza or burgers, or else bringing something from one of their parents' houses (Joyce sent a pot of chili; Nancy brought a big tray of Mexican something-or-other her mom made). He'd finally broken down and bought some more mugs, and an industrial-sized case of hot cocoa mix. There were never enough chairs for everybody, just kids sprawled everywhere, and the older teenagers helping out with the dishes (and actually getting along with each other, in a change from the early days; he'd caught all three of them laughing the other day while digging through his record collection).

So yeah. Playing host to a bunch of kids wasn't the worst thing he could've done with his Saturdays. Probably ought to charge their parents for the free babysitting service he was providing. Keeping them out of trouble and all that. (Except for that thing with the Henderson kid and the mousetrap-bullet booby traps, but he had no idea Jane was going to show him that.)

And maybe he did leave the police applications on the dashboard of the Harrington kid's car. Just in case.


End file.
